it appears to me to be a meritorious piece, and I picked it out, because I thought it unique and brief, for submission to the more extensive experience and more impartial judgment of THE CATHOLIC WORLD’S readers. Having entire control of these productions of my friend and preceptor, I took the liberty of substituting modern phraseology for what was antique, and of putting the sketch in such style that the most superficial reader will have no difficulty in running it over. Objection may be raised to the title on the score of fitness. I did not feel authorized to change it, believing the one chosen by the judgment of my old friend as suitable as any I could substitute. * * * * * In the year 1250 the mind of man was as restless and impatient of restraint as now, and some people in Bonn, under a quiet exterior, nursed in their bosoms latent volcanoes of passion, and indulged the waywardness of rebellious fancy to a degree that would have proved calamitous to the placid flow of life and thought could instrumentality for action have been found. There is indubitable proof that the principle of the Reformation, which three hundred years later burst through the environment of dogma and spread like a flood of lava over Europe, existed actively in Bonn in the year named, and would have arrived at mature strength if nature had not interposed an impassable barrier to the proceeding. It is hard to rebel against nature, and it is madness to expect success in such a revolt. Fourteen men, whose names have come down to us, gave body and tone, and a not very clearly defined purpose, to this untimely uprising against the inevitable in Bonn. How many others were in sympathy or in active affiliation with them is not shown. Those fourteen were bold spirits, who labored under the misfortune of having come into the world three or four centuries too soon. They were great men out of place. There is an element of rebellion in great spirits which only finds its proper antidote in the stronger and more harmonious principle of obedience. Obedience is the first condition of creatures. Those fourteen grew weary of listening to the Gospel preached every Sunday from the pulpit of S. Remigius, when they attended Mass with the thousands of their townsmen. The Scriptures, both New and Old, were given out in small doses, with an abundant mixture of explanation and homily and salutary exhortation. Their appetites craved a larger supply of Scripture, and indeed some of them were so unreasonable as to desire the reading of the whole book, from Genesis to Revelations, at one service. “Let us,” said Giestfacher, “have it all. No one is authorized to give a selection from the Bible and hold back the rest. It is our feast, and we have a right to the full enjoyment thereof.”